The Lives We Touch

by Eva Woods

  She was going again. She was … gone.

  6 May 1999 (Eighteen years ago)

  There was the spinning dial again. A sense of things happening around her, noise and light, but her vision intensely focused on the thing in front of her. Some kind of control panel? Numbers, whizzing around against a grey background. They settled once again into an order: 6 5 1999. She opened her eyes into a damp light. A large wet playing field, and some students in school uniform hanging about it. One of the three boys was smoking covertly, sneaking lots of glances over his shoulder. The two girls were a young Rosie and someone else. Rosie recognised the curtains haircuts of the boys and the friendship bracelets sported by her and her friend – it was the nineties, all right. She was also starting to remember what happened next.

  She turned to the ghostly figure of Mr Malcolm, who was gazing nostalgically at the school in the distance. ‘Ah, the old place. I spent thirty years working here, you know.’

  ‘God, I’m so sorry. Can they … see us?’

  ‘Non, non, cherie. It’s only a memory. Just watch.’

  Teen Rosie was all attitude and rippling red hair. She remembered that she’d hated it – battled every day against nicknames like Ginger Pubes and Period Head – but as an adult she could see it was beautiful. Pre-Raphaelite, not that she’d have known what that meant then. Something to do with the Ninja Turtles, she’d have guessed. The girl with her was someone Rosie now recognised. ‘Oh my God, it’s Angie! Angie, hi!’ Angela Timmons, a cheery girl who fought a losing battle with her love for Jaffa Cakes and Curly Wurlys, who had three younger brothers, a blur of energy and smelly feet, whose mother was big and comforting and gave them cups of hot Ribena in the kitchen, whose father was benevolent and silent and brought home a different selection of chocolate bars every night when he returned from his taxi-driving job. Surely she and Angie were still friends. But she could find no memories in her head that suggested they were.

  ‘She can’t hear you,’ whispered Mr Malcolm. ‘Dommage.’

  ‘God, I haven’t seen her since … um … I can’t remember. Have I seen her since school?’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  Teen Rosie had contorted her body into a strange flamingo-like shape, with one foot propped up against the back of the mobile classroom where they were skulking. Her arm was thrown up above her head, posing like ‘one of your French girls’ – she would of course have seen Titanic four times already by then. ‘Can I’ve a drag?’ she said to the alpha boy. It was obvious which one he was. His face that bit more handsome and hard. A gold stud in one ear – the right one, of course. The left one meant you were gay and you’d never live down a mistake like that.

  She was remembering his name now, dropping into her head like a windfall apple: Bryn Collins. Dreamboat of Year 11.

  ‘What am I doing?’ she asked Mr Malcolm, who had stooped to examine some weeds on the edge of the playing field. ‘With that boy?’

  ‘Look, it’s tansy, quite rare that. I think you’re setting your cap at him, or whatever you kids said back then.’

  ‘But … Angie liked him, didn’t she?’ She remembered now they had only gone to talk to the boys at Angie’s request. They should have been in Drama class right then, in fact, Rosie’s favourite.

  ‘Her hand would suggest it, oui.’

  The back of Angie’s hand had a heart drawn on it, names scrawled in smudgy red ink, and she could barely look at Bryn. She stared at her feet in their Doc Martens instead. Rosie could almost hear what Angie was thinking, across the years. Please, Rosie, don’t flirt with him … you’re so skinny and pretty and I’ve got spots and I’m too fat. Angie’s thoughts were practically the lyrics to ‘Jolene’ by Dolly Parton.

  Bryn held out the cigarette, but instead of taking it, Teen Rosie leaned forward and grabbed his hand, raising it to her mouth to drag from the cigarette. She’d seen that in some film (perhaps also Titanic). The other boys – what were their names? She must have known back then – whooped, recognising the sexual current in the air. Angie’s face crumpled.

  Bryn was the kind of boy whose cool came from saying very little. He shrugged a shoulder in his bomber jacket. ‘You wanna?’

  Teen Rosie blinked. Bryn Collins, popular, sexy Bryn, wanted to get off with her? Say no, Rosie urged her past self. Your friend likes him! Say no! But instead, Teen Rosie blushed a little and tossed her long red hair. ‘All right then.’

  Angie gave a loud sob. One of the other boys – Steve Mills, that was his name! – half-heartedly said, ‘I’ll pull ya, if ya want.’

  The other – Andy Franks! She was remembering it all now – just snickered.

  Wisely, Angie fled. As she bolted across the yard she stopped and rummaged in her schoolbag, taking out a Curly Wurly, cramming it into her mouth in huge bites, her face covered in tears and chocolate. Rosie watched her leave, but instead of going after her, she followed Bryn a few metres away where, behind the bike shed, still in full view, he proceeded to suck at her face in the manner of the creature from Alien eating someone’s brain.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Rosie, watching the memory unfold. ‘That was a really bad thing for me to do. I guess Angie and I aren’t friends now. I was one of those girls.’

  ‘Looks that way,’ Mr Malcolm agreed. ‘Quelle horreur. Well, I think this memory is finished now. Shall we return to the present?’

  ‘But what was the point of that?’ Rosie burst out. ‘Showing me a time I was horrible, reminding me that I lost Angie as a friend – we were really good friends too! – and making me relive that horrible face-eating snog?’

  ‘I don’t know, dear.’ Mr Malcolm had blushed at the word snog. ‘Maybe your brain is choosing these memories for a reason. To help you work out something about your life, before it’s too late. Remember, you only have three days.’

  ‘But they’ve both been bad ones so far!’

  ‘I’m sorry. Let’s go back, dear. I think you have some more visitors. Allons.’

  Rosie was blinking away tears, which despite this flat ghostly world she was in – the school in the distance distorted and shady, Mr Malcolm himself now see-through, just a voice and a vague sense of a body – felt very real. She felt the tears run over her face and drip down into her neck. This was awful. Being awake and in massive pain was surely better than this. Why didn’t her brain want to relive good memories, like the time they won the Under-15 County Netball Championships, and her team-mates carried her on their shoulders into Assembly? Or the time in Greece, jumping off that cliff into the blue, blue sea? Or … Luke, her mind whispered back, treacherously. Rosie shut it down, squashing it like she was slamming her hand over a fly. She wasn’t sure what it meant, or who Luke was, but she definitely wasn’t ready to think about it yet. She closed her eyes and came back to herself.

  Rosie

  Lights. Lights and noise, searing into her brain, making her want to curl up and hide. The hospital room. A small child was standing over her. ‘Daddy! She’s stopped crying now!’

  Daddy?

  Rosie could feel things – tears on her face. So those had been real. The ache in her feet, arms, lungs, head. That was real too, unfortunately. The small child – it was a girl, she thought – was peering down at her with interest, wearing what looked like a princess costume. That couldn’t be right. Another dream/ghost/hallucination?

  A man came into sight, looking harried and old, but dressed twenty years too young for him in khaki shorts and a straining polo shirt. ‘Scarlett, be careful. Rosie’s very poorly.’

  ‘She was crying.’

  ‘It’s probably just her eyes watering. I don’t think she can hear us.’

  But I can! I can!

  Scarlett had keener eyes than the adults. ‘I think she can. She doesn’t like the light being so bright. Can you turn it down, Daddy?’

  Yes, that’s true; thank you, Scarlett. Whoever you are.

  ‘The doctors need it to see,’ said the man, with that irritating grown-up adherence to authority
that had enraged Rosie as a child. If she’d been able to open her eyes properly, she’d have rolled them conspiratorially at Scarlett. The man, whoever he was, was looking at Rosie as if she scared him. She could almost place him. It was on the tip of her tongue. The face she knew, but he was so much older, almost bald, and those stupid clothes …

  ‘Dad!’ said Daisy, coming in the door with yet more paper cups. ‘You made it. Hi, Scarlett. Um … what are you wearing?’

  ‘It was fancy-dress day at her school,’ explained the man, taking one of the cups. ‘Is that coffee?’

  ‘Of a sort.’

  Scarlett came over and gave Daisy a warm hug round the waist. ‘Hi, Daisy. I’m sorry Rosie banged her head.’

  Daisy had visibly crumpled at the hug, patting the nylon back of the little girl’s costume. ‘The doctors think maybe she’ll get better … we hope. Are you Elsa from Frozen?’

  Scarlett sighed. She didn’t seem like a princessy girl. She had short hair for a start, and sensible glasses. ‘I wanted to be a dinosaur but Mummy said all the other girls were being princesses. It’s so boring.’

  Rosie was really warming to this kid. But wait, Daisy had said Dad. Dad. That meant …

  Oh Lord. This try-hard older man with the young child was … Rosie’s father.

  Daisy

  ‘Michael. You turned up.’ Her mother’s voice was as cold as ice-pops when she came back into the room and saw her ex-husband there.

  ‘Alison. I came as soon as I could. I had to pick up Scarlett.’ He indicated his other daughter. Daisy’s heart ached for her mother. How could anyone handle this situation? ‘God, she looks terrible. What have they said?’

  ‘Is Rosie asleep?’ said Scarlett, curiously. ‘Will she sleep for a long long time?’

  ‘She got hit on the head and it made her poorly.’ Her mother’s voice was stiff. Hit on the head. It didn’t capture the horror of it, which Daisy felt she could see in the corner of her eye all the time. The screech of brakes. The thump. People screaming, gathering round, traffic stopped. Sirens. She could picture it so clearly, it was as if she’d been there.

  ‘Oh. What’s this tube for?’

  ‘It helps her breathe.’

  ‘She can’t breathe?’

  ‘Not very well, no.’ Daisy could hear the strain in her mother’s voice, and a swell of worry began in her stomach. Her parents hadn’t been in the same room for years – not even at her engagement party – and added to all the anger, worry and fear sloshing around, this had to be handled carefully.

  ‘Come away, Scarlett,’ said her dad, stressed. ‘Let’s leave Rosie to rest. Does she know we’re here?’ He turned to her mother.

  ‘They can’t tell. It’s possible.’

  ‘I think she can,’ said Scarlett confidently. ‘Her eyes moved like she was waking up. Why did Rosie walk in front of the bus? Didn’t she see it?’

  Daisy’s parents exchanged glances that were full of fear and something else. Guilt, maybe. Daisy read the room. ‘Scarlett, why don’t you pop outside? I’ll give you my phone to play on.’

  ‘Do you have Angry Birds?’

  ‘No, but … I’m sure you can find something. I’ll get you a hot chocolate after.’

  ‘With marshmallows?’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘Did you know they’re made from cows’ hooves?’

  ‘Um, no, I didn’t. Please, Scar?’ Daisy watched her leave, reluctantly taking a seat in the waiting room. It was too easy to imagine things being different, time unspooling back to when she and Rosie were small. Mum and Dad together. Dad not doing the school run at sixty, Mum not bitter, Rosie not under a bus … but then Scarlett would not exist. And however painful the divorce had been, Daisy could not wish that. When her small sister was out of earshot, she turned to her parents, summoning all the assertiveness Maura had tried to drum into her. ‘The doctors need to talk to us. And after, we need to discuss what’s going on with Rosie. Not just now. I mean for the past, like, thirty years. We have to talk about the reasons she’s here in the first place.’

  Rosie

  ‘You’re saying she might be conscious in there?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’ Her parents and Daisy were talking to the two young doctors. The male one was speaking, the one Rosie had nicknamed Dr Chill. He had a soothing, laid-back voice, unlike the female doctor who spoke in brisk, jolly-hockey-sticks tones. Rosie’s mother was wringing her hands and her father was nodding his head up and down like a Bobblehead toy. The space between them was painful. Daisy stood apart, her arms wrapped around herself so tightly her hands were white.

  ‘So, she could still wake up?’ Hope in her father’s voice.

  ‘It’s possible. But her Glasgow Coma Scale scores aren’t great, I’m sorry to say. She’s a six.’

  ‘Six out of what?’

  ‘It goes from three up to fifteen.’

  ‘And six is bad?’

  ‘Dad,’ murmured Daisy. ‘Let them talk.’

  The doctors exchanged looks. The female one took over. ‘Well, it means she shows some signs of brain activity, can respond to some stimuli, like light shining in her eyes.’ Brain activity. That was a strange way to describe, you know, being alive.

  ‘Great! So she will wake up, then?’

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s not as simple as that.’

  The male doctor went on. ‘Sometimes people recover after a few days, or weeks, but sometimes they don’t, and we don’t always know why. The problem is that the longer she’s in a coma, the worse it is for her body. Everything’s atrophying. Being on a drip and catheter increases the risk of infection, a breathing tube can lead to pneumonia. In another two days she’ll need a PEG feeding tube put in, as well as a tracheotomy. She’d have to be moved to long-term care. And there’s always the risk her brain will swell or bleed again.’

  Panic had seized Rosie’s throat, where the breathing tube in question was so uncomfortably lodged. She was trying not to think about it, though it was maddening, the feeling of it. She didn’t want her throat cut into. But was she ready to wake up, to face her family and explain about the bus …?

  She didn’t remember about the bus. She didn’t know why it had happened.

  ‘What can we do?’ Her mother’s voice shook. ‘How can we help her wake up?’

  Dr Posh Spice said, in her brisk way: ‘There are various techniques. Drugs and so on. Talking to her might also help, playing her favourite music, that kind of thing. It’s possible her brain is still functioning, but has temporarily shut down some functions due to the trauma of the accident. Once it’s recovered a little, it might respond better.’

  ‘She’s in there?’ Her dad peered at her. Yes, I’m here. I can hear you, talking about me. ‘Can she … hear us?’

  ‘There’s no way to tell. But even if she can it may not make any sense to her. She could experience some of it as vivid dreams, or even hallucinations. It’s worth trying, though.’

  ‘We wanted to ask you something, actually.’ Dr Chill consulted his notes. ‘When they brought Rosie in, she was briefly conscious in the ambulance. She was saying a name. We think it might have been “Luke”. Does that mean something to you?’

  Rosie tensed (as much as she could). Luke. That name. It threatened to release a flood in her, a rainbow of emotions from brightest pink to darkest black. Who was he? A husband or boyfriend she’d forgotten about?

  Her parents were shaking their heads blankly, Daisy too. ‘No.’ Not her husband then.

  ‘Not a relative or … does she have a brother?’

  Her family went rigid as rails. After a moment, her mother quietly said, ‘No. But if it was a boyfriend, we wouldn’t necessarily know. She doesn’t tell me things.’

  ‘She tells you more than me, Alison.’

  ‘You might be surprised, Michael.’ Their voices were so frosty, like a layer of ice on a pond. ‘Daisy, do you know anything?’

  Her sister was shaking her head. ‘I … we weren’t rea
lly talking either.’

  ‘She could have been saying “look”,’ volunteered her father. ‘You know, as in look out. Maybe … maybe she was warning someone else away from the bus and it got her instead.’

  A tactful silence. Dr Chill said gently, ‘Mr Cooke, I’m afraid the police have quite a lot of eyewitness testimony and it looked as if Rosie walked straight in front of it. So … if she does wake up, we need to think about putting her on suicide watch.’

  Daisy gasped, and her mother seemed to sway on her feet. ‘What?’ said her father, too loudly.

  Suicide watch, what a strange phrase. Rosie imagined an actual watch on your wrist, one you could press when it all got too much. It would be too dangerous, something like that. Everyone felt at times like it was all too much. Would she have tried to kill herself? She’d have said no, of course not. But in this life she was learning about – where she wasn’t speaking to her family, where she lived alone in a horrible flat – who knew? Who knew what she would have done?

  ‘Oh,’ said her mother, pressing a hand to her chest like she had indigestion. ‘Oh, Rosie.’

  Her father’s voice was strangled. ‘How can you stand there and suggest that she’d … that Rosie would …? It was an accident!’ Daisy put a hand on his arm.

  ‘We know it’s difficult,’ said Dr Posh Spice, in the brisk tones of someone telling you an injection might sting a bit. ‘I’m afraid you need to prepare yourselves for the chance that, even if Rosie does wake up, she may not be … as she was.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ said Daisy, sounding fearful.

  ‘There are often cognitive defects with this kind of injury … severe neurological problems.’

  ‘In English?’ her father said, harassed. Her mother frowned at him.

  Dr Chill took over, soothingly. ‘Brain injuries can affect everything, unfortunately. Walking, talking, swallowing … being able to feed yourself …’

  ‘She won’t be able to walk?’ Her mother sounded horrified. Rosie felt terror all through her body, leaden as it was. This was just temporary, wasn’t it? She’d be able to do things again, like open her eyes and speak and move bits of her at will? Those things you took for granted, that everyone expected would just be there when they woke up in the morning.